dream-realm

[dream-realm]

Applying to jobs, encountered a posting that starts, “we leverage technology and automation to create workflow synergies...”.....

I will literally jump into oncoming traffic. 

[dream-realm]

Living in a world where there are concerns and goals other than just being nice and decent to the people around you is exhausting. I cannot take stressed-out assholes seriously. Or anyone who elevates the goal of your endeavor or work above the basic decency and kindness you owe to people. If you’re a negative, mean person, what’s anything you do worth?

I used to think this attitude of mine was a defense mechanism, and maybe that I was just secretly intimidated by people. But as I’ve grown up and time passes, I really just find these people and habits immature and exhausting. It’s not scary; it’s just annoying and often inhumane. Anger, malice, pride, etc. Who wants to be around that, much less embody it?

Also, that’s basically all social media is. I’m noticing a lot more now that I don’t use this as often. Come on and people are basically rambling to themselves about their superiority. No one cares that you think you’re smarter or better than everyone else. You sound like a little kid; it’s tiring and annoying. I can’t stand when adults act like this, like their anger is righteous, and that everyone should excuse it.

[dream-realm]

It’s so hard for me to think of the present as anything other than the end of my life. It’s not that I can’t appreciate or visualize the future, or delay gratification or plan or anticipate. I often do these things; they just don’t feel real to me. When people tell me that, say, this will be worth it one day, or that it’ll pay off, I do understand what they mean, and I even agree. But it doesn’t hold sway over me as it does them, because I’m unable to believe that I’ll be fortunate enough to make it there. Not because the thing will prevent or kill me, or because something similar has happened in the past. It’s more like I’m living in the aftermath of perpetual disappointment. I never dreamt or hoped, and I deliberately weaned myself off those things. And now with them gone, it feels like the future is nonexistent, like it depended entirely on the things I unlearned.

One time I listened to an interview with Clarence Thomas, and he said something similar about his absent father. That after a few years and holidays of him not showing up, he just learned to stop hoping and instead that you wake up everyday and do your work and toil. That really resonates with me. The difference is that no one ever really left me; more than that, they stayed and were so good to me. But it’s always felt like I was missing that thing, even when I’ve gotten out of my head. And even when I was able to expect things, they came to fruition but never satiated. I thought so many different things were the problem; and then that there was no problem; that if there were problems, they’re intractable; or they’re just problematic when you’re passive, or don’t do much with your life. 

I know how to apply myself and to apportion time, and how to plan and earn returns. But in a deeper sense, I can’t feel the time passing anymore. It makes me feel like I’ve reached the end of my life, though I’m ostensibly beginning still. And I’m not sure if it feels depressing or serene. It sounds nice, but it often feels like a never-ending day, where there’s never a night to resolve or heal things. They don’t carryover as much as they persist forever. I finally understand why hope is a virtue. I want this to be edifying. I’ve realized that if you truly relent for even a moment, or knowingly allow yourself slack, your entire life might effectively disappear. You’ll lose everything and accelerate toward your deathbed and be punished with regret and retrospection and nostalgia. I feel like I’m there everyday, except I never feel regret or nostalgia. I’m going to try for probably the first time ever to keep the defenses up, which is hard because it requires that I hope for something long off in the future that’s almost inarticulable, and that I only sometimes feel. So far that’s it not really a matter of linear time. 

[dream-realm]

people who watch twitch streamers and youtubers and tiktokers are incomprehensible to me like you really live like this?

[dream-realm]

Masking versus anti-masking is politically uninteresting. Either way, you’ve conceded that Walmart or some chain store constitutes the country’s moral battleground. I saw a guy the other day walking around w/ out a mask looking self-assured, and I thought, but you’re in a strip mall right now? I’m not gonna wear it either, but I’m not pretending it’s rebellious. The fact that these places are important enough to our lives to warrant a “stance” is humiliating enough. I wish that was the takeaway. 

[dream-realm]

Everyone mystifies problems in order to avoid them. It’s a subtle form of dishonesty. I think people are genuinely convinced that problems are elusive and complicated, and so can only be “hacked” away with what’re effectively secret incantations.

Started noticing this when people pretend that they don’t know how to stop using their phone so much. You shut it off, or leave it in the other room. You don’t look at it when you don’t have to, which is most of the time. You form a habit. But they think there must be some secret or technique. It has to be that there’s an app tracking your use that promotes guilt or self-disgust. Or, you non-phone addict were simply born with superior willpower.

Do people not realize they can just do, and not do, things? I get that this is seriously reductive, but even saying that much gives you an out. You can just be a person in the world who does different things. I’m trying hard to unlearn the mystique with which we surround ordinary problems. And to call them ordinary or simple is not to say they’re insignificant. But if you refuse to do anything and instead entrench yourself in a world of defensive justifications and inaction, nothing’s ever getting better - and that’s on you, not other people.

I actually started to grow annoyed with myself. You do know what’s bothering you, at least some significant part of it. You do know some of what you want, what would make you feel better. You’re trying to avoid the discomfort by pretending that there’s some perfect or special or secret way to do things that’ll make everything align. You’re trying to avoid that by refusing to do anything. So that you can think through all these problems and options and pressures and tensions. In reality, there are some pretty basic things you can do that would probably improve your well-being.

The real fear is that there is no cosmic injustice or accident pitted against you. Even if there was, you did nothing to deal with it. You thought it through a lot; but that doesn’t really count for much, if anything. I’m trying hard to stop committing or confining things to thought or contemplation. Not to say it has no place, or no use or import. But thinking about things is never going to fix them. Being concerned about something is unimportant and boring. 

[dream-realm]

Anyone have techniques for sustaining or maintaining a particular mood? Not sure if that resonates when phrased that way. I guess it’s probably not something you can willfully do. But I feel drastically different sometimes even across a few minute duration. I can feel so good for a moment at night, and then terrible the next morning, even when nothing of note has happened in the meantime. How do you keep hopeful and in good spirits, even if just internally? Genuinely asking. My baseline is pretty low, and I have trouble sustaining any kind of uptick from that. Any good feeling or positive outlook is completely fleeting. For instance, I felt pretty grateful and hopeful this morning, but now that’s gone. (I understand that there are all sorts of conceptual things to tease out here. But all I really care about is feeling marginally better throughout the day. Curious if anyone’s succeeded at this kind of thing.)

[dream-realm]

Do you think people going forward will discontinue the whole “everything’s going to change” sentiment in light of covid? It’s not that things don’t change, just that they never do in the way people imagine. Nothing “changed,” in the relevant sense, due to covid. People who respond to all the hiring signs w/ “y’all, it’s happening lmao,” are seriously retarded. That’s government sanctioned...no one’s “rising up.” I just wonder if the average person will keep up the whole overnight change charade. Self-avowed leftwing people are so embarrassing.

[dream-realm]

Turns out separation from God is the most plausible rationale for why I’ve felt all the different ways I have throughout my life. Nothing else has ever made sense. And I tried to interpret the feeling in so many ways, but none ever really sufficed. I can remember being young and feeling exactly the way I do now, but with no way to articulate it or make in intelligible. I’ve just never been happy, even when good things happen. And I don’t think I really believe that one’s brain is simply configured in one or another way, plus environment etc. Everything was perfect, and still I felt and feel so alien and apart.

[dream-realm]

Thought about this a little more. Like many things, it’s probably just a European import into an American context that didn’t really fit until about a few years ago. This kind of anxiety surrounding oneself, proving and justifying your existence, inflating and amplifying everything into a life-altering, existential puzzle. It’s a kind of unhealthy, naïve, ultimately annoying interiority and self-preoccupation. This idea that everyone’s trembling, immovable before life and themselves. The explicit sexual repression narrative is only one manifestation of this. 

But did any of this characterize Americans generally over five years ago? Wasn’t it that we were exterior to a fault, braggadocios, people inhumanely defiant and uninterested in our alleged cruelty? Do we now think that was just a show? I’m shocked that anyone of my generation could say that. People were genuinely proud and self-believing. I understand why that’s brutish and distasteful and so on. But it wasn’t a defense- or coping-mechanism. No one was wracked with anxiety or guilt about their nationality or social roles. There were good and bad things about that. 

I’d love to know if anyone’s been onto something similar, or written anything along these lines. I’m suspicious of people and forces intent on convincing us to hate ourselves - ‘us’ being any group, identity, whatever. So suspicious of forces that merely divide and never unite or console, or do so only falsely and maliciously. The proverbial “they” want to flatten us out so badly. Can you imagine what it would be like to genuinely believe in yourself and other people? My sense growing up was that we default to this confidence. Now it’s so obvious that people everywhere at all times are discouraged from this. 

I.e. why is it cool to hate yourself? What about that is healthy? Your conviction that everyone else does hate themselves, and that in many cases they ought to, is the most disgusting drug. And if you think this is preaching a variant of free love, you’re hopelessly plugged-in. They really want everyone to be exactly the same, and to lord over homogeneity. Everything’s like a mindless maze or puzzle. No one can feel good without other people hating themselves. It’s so disgusting. The inhumanity and facelessness of it. People really believe only in systems and credentials and snark, never other people. 

Does anyone find, even just purely anecdotally, that people are seriously repressed in different ways? I’ve always found this kind of insistence boring and obviously exaggerated. It’s something only a profoundly self-conscious and unconfident person could think. 

There’s probably a weak version of the idea that’s trivially true, at least in certain respects. But the notion that everyone’s terribly repressed and that, underneath the surface, they’d necessarily agree with your poorly-hidden politics is so shallow and bizarre and frightened.

[dream-realm]

Does anyone find, even just purely anecdotally, that people are seriously repressed in different ways? I’ve always found this kind of insistence boring and obviously exaggerated. It’s something only a profoundly self-conscious and unconfident person could think. 

There’s probably a weak version of the idea that’s trivially true, at least in certain respects. But the notion that everyone’s terribly repressed and that, underneath the surface, they’d necessarily agree with your poorly-hidden politics is so shallow and bizarre and frightened.

[dream-realm]

Strange thing that’s happening as I grow up is that I’m acquiring classically socially conservative attitudes and feelings lol. Sometimes I’m around people and think, please, please stop cursing..a woman at work mentioned 50 shades of grey the other day and I was mortified lol. People are laughing and cussing while we work, and it sounds like nails on a chalkboard. I find myself thinking, why are they being so rowdy? They’re acting like teenagers. People do something as simple and harmless as use certain slang, and I’m shrieking inside. Please keep that to yourself..please quiet down

[dream-realm]

So much of what we consider normal is literally demonic. Remember when the internet was more focused on sharing your interests and finding likeminded people? Either that focus has shifted, or everyone’s interests have collapsed into hatred and complaining. There’s always arguably been hints and pockets of this, but that negativity's now ubiquitous. 

And what’s beneficial about it, the catharsis? If that makes you feel good, you’re unhealthy. People are constantly saying, in so many words, “I just hate X kind of person” - and that’s when they aren’t outright saying it, which is permissible and encouraged. The amount of times I’ve seen someone write, say, “just let us hate X, we have good reason to,” is depressing. 

Have fun in hell, I guess? Who’s the kind of person that publicizes that thought? I want to be near them - we’ve all been near them - so that I can draw them out. But as I move along in my life, that sentiment becomes unrelatable. And thank God for that. People from all walks of life have been bargaining for years to voice this nonsense - everyone, not just this or that political persuasion. How can you listen to this without embarrassment? It’s literally humiliating, both to voice it, to endorse the justification, as well as to acquiesce to those popularizing the attitude and outlook.

I think I’m blessed to have grown up around good, positive, confident people. On the other hand, I may not be unique: aren’t most political, social, or thought trends encouraging you to dislike people? That’s what I can’t relate to - I don’t dislike people, even when I’m critical of them. Why is it cool to dislike everyone nowadays? Why do we have to pretend that’s an insurmountable burden placed on people? It’s not. 

This underlying idea, that you can’t help but feel certain things, and are justifiably spiteful to this extent, is demonic. As if it were simply out of your hands. Imagine relieving yourself of playing an active role in your own redemption. As if being a good person is only possible in a good world. Seriously, imagine the interior of the person who thinks they’re justifiably bitter and hateful, and that the burden of overcoming this excludes themselves. The mental and spiritual gymnastics required to sustain that delusion are mind-numbing. I don’t care if you want to be miserable. I just can’t involve myself at a certain point. I’m interested in being happy, loving, growing, not prolonging teenage angst and unhealth. 

(This actually has little to do with the internet or religion.) 

[dream-realm]

They acted like there had been some great, widely-shared inside joke about him, and they were ecstatic as they finally got to say the quiet part out loud. That was really weird for me to experience, because I spent a little over a week working with him, and all he ever talked about was normal stuff, like sports and his family. Really weird to hear a guy say stuff like, “I really wish someone around here would give me some feedback on my work,” and “I’m so excited for my son to come home today; my wife’s making such-and-such for dinner; we’re all going to watch the game together” - really weird to hear that and then watch him be openly mocked. 

Their impression of him was entirely spun from gossip and childishness. So disheartening, and makes for a weird environment to work in now, at least on my end. 

I just finished my second week at a new job, and my coworkers are already revealing themselves to be horrible people.

When I arrived, there was a guy working in basically the same capacity as me. And he was definitely somewhat incompetent and unable to handle the workload. So it’s not shocking that they fired him this Thursday. But everyone’s reaction to it was completely bizarre and unfitting given the kind of person he was. He was a sweet, semi-nervous grown man; he needed a bit too much direction; etc. You know what that kind of person is like - a sad case, basically. 

But once he left - literally five minutes after he’d gone - everyone was laughing about it and acting like he was physically repulsive. It was so confusing. They started cautiously cleaning out his desk like it was a toxic spill site. Like his presence was physically offensive or gross. Like an animal. And they were all egging each other on, daring one another to smell certain items: pens, papers, etc. And beside that, they were acting like he was this pest that bothered everyone, when in reality he was confined to his desk all day and really only spoke to a few people. 

He was very obviously pleasant, unassuming, and naïve - “good natured”. As I’ve gone through life, I’m shocked to find that people can’t recognize that kind of person. It’s so weird. They’re literally the most indecent people I feel I’ve ever been around. I felt like saying, you guys realize you just fired a guy, right? It’s not like this was his “summer job” or something. 

I was lucky enough to have been at the bathroom when they actually did it. I came back and everyone was acting like something funny or good had happened. My quasi-boss was smiling and gestured with her hands for me to quickly come into her office. She seemed almost giddy as she told me. And the stuff she told me about him wasn’t even real and was designed to rope me into the hatred of him. I just sat there and didn’t bite and was like, yes I can pick up where he left off.

I’m realizing I care a lot more about being around normal, nice people than I thought. It’s actually spiritually damaging to be around evil, once you’ve reached a certain point. But I need the job. I didn’t really get any other offers or opportunities. It feels like working around a bunch of high schoolers actually. 

[dream-realm]

I just finished my second week at a new job, and my coworkers are already revealing themselves to be horrible people.

When I arrived, there was a guy working in basically the same capacity as me. And he was definitely somewhat incompetent and unable to handle the workload. So it’s not shocking that they fired him this Thursday. But everyone’s reaction to it was completely bizarre and unfitting given the kind of person he was. He was a sweet, semi-nervous grown man; he needed a bit too much direction; etc. You know what that kind of person is like - a sad case, basically. 

But once he left - literally five minutes after he’d gone - everyone was laughing about it and acting like he was physically repulsive. It was so confusing. They started cautiously cleaning out his desk like it was a toxic spill site. Like his presence was physically offensive or gross. Like an animal. And they were all egging each other on, daring one another to smell certain items: pens, papers, etc. And beside that, they were acting like he was this pest that bothered everyone, when in reality he was confined to his desk all day and really only spoke to a few people. 

He was very obviously pleasant, unassuming, and naïve - “good natured”. As I’ve gone through life, I’m shocked to find that people can’t recognize that kind of person. It’s so weird. They’re literally the most indecent people I feel I’ve ever been around. I felt like saying, you guys realize you just fired a guy, right? It’s not like this was his “summer job” or something. 

I was lucky enough to have been at the bathroom when they actually did it. I came back and everyone was acting like something funny or good had happened. My quasi-boss was smiling and gestured with her hands for me to quickly come into her office. She seemed almost giddy as she told me. And the stuff she told me about him wasn’t even real and was designed to rope me into the hatred of him. I just sat there and didn’t bite and was like, yes I can pick up where he left off.

I’m realizing I care a lot more about being around normal, nice people than I thought. It’s actually spiritually damaging to be around evil, once you’ve reached a certain point. But I need the job. I didn’t really get any other offers or opportunities. It feels like working around a bunch of high schoolers actually. 

[dream-realm]

Genuinely, what do you get out of posting on here? When I read your posts I can't imagine a reason with which you'd justify to yourself keeping this blog - you're rightly very critical of social media, don't believe it's a medium fit for meaningful debate, seemingly aren't at all interested in external 'validation', etc. If the intention is merely to keep track of your thoughts, why post them at all? This isn't some passive agressive plea for you to delete; I'm just curious and would like to know what reasoning makes checking/posting on Tumblr (or any social media) still somehow 'worth it' to you. Again, I mean this genuinely and not combatively - kind of stupid to have to say, but alas.

It feels like I'm mostly just peoplewatching at this point, really. Part of it is that I like venting about that, and I enjoy writing even if it's just a short blurb, so I shoot something out occasionally when I'm around the computer. I wouldn't say that's me keeping track of thoughts; that's more something I confine to notes on the phone and a physical journal. I haven't had any other social media for 5+ years, so I only use this site.

Actually, the biggest change in my social media use in the last year or so beside frequency has been the fact that I don't "check" this site. I rarely login and check anyone's blog, much less scroll down the dash. This is partly due to mutuals using the site less and in some cases deleting altogether - not many people left I care to check on. But it's also due to a persistent thought I have: as you look back on your life, was any of it online well spent? Wasn't there always something better to do?

Of course that's a common thought applied to many interests, desires, vices, etc. I apply it to the internet and social media because I've spent a significant amount of time on here over the years. And increasingly more spend lots of time online. When I reflect, much of that time has been ill spent. Outside the few good friends I've made and a relationship I've had, social media's been a waste of time, energy, attention, concern, etc.; the internet as whole, less so, but still a waste. I feel this more acutely than I once did.

The fact that the internet and social media have creeped into most facets of people's lives depresses me. Maybe I hope that by drawing attention to the downsides, people will second-guess their impulses in this regard; probably doubtful if they're confronted on the medium I'm criticizing, but not nothing.

You don't really learn or discover much online, though it feels like you do. What you encounter is shallow and paper-thin. Almost everyone lies and gossips and encourages hysterics on here. Anyone online for five years or so will realize this. It's hard to conceive of it as anything other than addicted, masturbatory, ego-stroking. I can't help but feel that people have seriously gone wrong. For example - and as you well know - the fact that you have to explicitly state your earnestness is a testament to the weird moralistic aggression of people online. Only "real life" pussies act like that online; but nearly everyone online's like that. I don't want to be around people like that. Nor does a person like yourself, I'd guess. But that's what it's like around here: everyone hates everything, everyone, lashes out, refuses gradation, nuance, complexity, accountability, etc.

And everything's happening everywhere at the same time. Most people have accepted that, whether as a matter of fact or political mandate. But I hate that, and I don't think I really believe in it. The world and life are better when relatively disconnected. It's naïve to treat this kind of connection as liberatory, positive, interesting, etc. We're thinning-out and homogenizing our lives. I could go on, but that would defeat the point.

Anyway, sorry this turned into a diatribe, and that I answered you so late, but this is what I use this site for, I guess lol. I wouldn't say it's "worth" anything though. If I had full time work or a more involved social life, I'd never use this; I just don't like it enough anymore. I'm getting closer to achieving the first, at which time I imagine I'll probably forget this blog exists. But I doubt I'd delete it.

Life online feels childish and boring to me; most of life nowadays feels like that. It's hard to express why that is. My adolescence coincided with the rise of internet and social media. Much of life has been transferred online, or otherwise refers to the online world. Because I was youngish and growing up as we adopted all these technologies and habits, I feel I do have some insight into their affects and (dis)value. And it's hard for me to discern many positives. I really think the internet is fueling an extension of adolescence - in combination with other factors as well. Maybe I've teased that out before in posts, but I don't feel like rehearsing it: you either get it or you don't. And if you analogize it to certain boomer-ish critiques, you don't.

My dream is that everyone suddenly forgets and unlearns the habits and ethos of 2000-present, especially 2008-present. It's not happening. The thought of people falling asleep on their phone screens, isolating through headphones, using the internet while neglecting friends and family, discovering sexuality and identity online, etc. - these all depress me so much. Wouldn't your grandma shutter if she knew what was relatively "normal" in our online world, things you did online growing up? Things you're tempted and convinced to continue, however apparently innocent? A lot's changed for the worse.

[dream-realm]

It's pretty crazy how internet and social media have in large part convinced people that hating everyone and everything else is cool and justifiable. You actually think that's sustainable, insisting upon disliking everyone? What're you 15yrs old? You sound like that kind of kid who has to be pulled aside during play for an unreasonable bad attitude. "Let me know when you're ready to be nice and have fun, and then you can come back and play with all the other kids." But internet people never took that offer. They dig in their heels with a shit-eating grin and somehow imagine that they alone are beyond all reproach. It sounds stupid, but don't you step back and look and think, have fun in hell then? If that's what you want.

Imagine meeting someone from here or some other social media you use at 50yrs old. I don't want to meet that person lol. A lifetime of bitterness and petty, meaningless gossiping about things that don't matter, talking about them in an unproductive way. "Ya well, luckily for you we'll all be dead by then from climate change." That's what I'm talking about: you sound like a frustrated preteen. One of the myriad ways "the personal is political" has been mistakenly effected: since one's political commitments aren't independent of their personal life and conduct, then their bad attitude and social ineptness, resentment, cattiness, emotional outbursts - all of these must be interpreted as deepseated and politically or socially serious. Everything is justified in light of this. So it just can't be that you're a miserable baby; your grievance is something we must all cater to very seriously. As if it were more than it is.

This is what I think about when people on here give advice to younger people. If you're under 18, you should leave. People who hate everyone but themselves and whoever they think their group is aren't edgy; they're pathetic and laughable to the well-adjusted. "But well-adjustness itself, you see, is x-ism and beholden to x y z." Cool, no one cares because it's employed as a rhetorical tool, not a substantive position. Pretty much no one actually believes in anything anymore or cares about people. That's why their advice rings hollow and lackluster. They're ungreatful harpies.